"The liberal media have spent 12 years feeling sorry for Al Gore. The Man Who Should Have Won in 2000 has had megatons of positive publicity dumped on him, hailing him as the 'Goracle.' ... So when Gore sold his left-wing cable channel Current TV to Al-Jazeera for $500 million, where were they? ... At about 42,000 viewers during primetime, the nationwide audience [of Current TV] could fit inside the Washington Redskins' Fedex Field and still leave the stadium half-empty. ... But the controversy is not about ratings. It's about one network selling itself to another best known for vicious anti-American propaganda. ... Gore rebuffed an offer from conservative radio/TV personality Glenn Beck to buy Current TV. Beck was told, 'The legacy of who the network goes to is important to us, and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.' Beck is not aligned with the Gore viewpoint, and yet Al-Jazeera is? ... None dares express horror that the man who was almost president on 9/11 was allying himself with al-Qaida's video jukebox." --columnist L. Brent Bozell

A month ago I wrote, in a piece on FrontPage Mag called “The Art of Class War,” that progressives aren’t interested in coexistence or bipartisanship with the right; they want total domination and our eventual extinction. Last Friday an article subtly titled “Go for the Throat!” appeared on the leftist website Slate in which their chief political correspondent John Dickerson openly confirmed my point, calling for President Obama to destroy the Republican party in his second term.

The challenge for President Obama’s speech is the challenge of his second term: how to be great when the [D.C.] environment stinks… Washington’s partisan rancor, the size of the problems facing government, and the limited amount of time before Obama is a lame duck all point to a single conclusion: The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat. [Emphasis added]

Thank you, Mr. Dickerson, for putting your party’s totalitarian ruthlessness on the table in plain sight. Thank you for removing any lingering doubt that yours is the fascist party of hatred and intolerance, not to mention lack of diversity where it counts – the diversity of ideas.

Dickerson asserts that Obama has two options as he enters his second term: on the one hand, he can simply be the caretaker to what Dickerson calls “the achievements of his first term. He’d make sure health care reform is implemented, nurse the economy back to health, and put the military on a new footing after two wars.” (Allow me to correct Dickerson here: he means Obama would make sure that his health care leviathan drags us all down into a Euro-socialist wasteland, continue to drive the economy off a cliff, and decimate our military.)

But, Dickerson says with an admiration born of the cult of personality so central to the left’s totalitarianism, “he’s not going for caretaker”; Obama is “more ambitious than that” (most definitely) and is not “content to ride out the second half of the game in the Barcalounger” (definitely not – he’s more likely to ride out the second half of the game on the golf course, where he spent much of the first half).

“How should the president proceed then, if he wants to be bold?” asks Dickerson rhetorically. Press harder for bipartisan consensus? Schmooze with Republicans, perhaps even – shudder – compromise with them? Perish the thought, Dickerson concludes, blaming the Republicans for hindering the progressive march toward Utopia:

That’s the old way. He has abandoned that. He doesn’t think it will work and he doesn’t have the time. As Obama explained in his last press conference, he thinks the Republicans are dead set on opposing him. They cannot be unchained by schmoozing. Even if Obama were wrong about Republican intransigence, other constraints will limit the chance for cooperation. Republican lawmakers worried about primary challenges in 2014 are not going to be willing partners. He probably has at most 18 months before people start dropping the lame-duck label in close proximity to his name.

God knows the radical left resents constraints on their impatient political power grabs. So what’s an Alinsky-steeped former community organizer to do?

Obama’s only remaining option is to pulverize. Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents. Through a series of clarifying fights over controversial issues, he can force Republicans to either side with their coalition’s most extreme elements or cause a rift in the party that will leave it, at least temporarily, in disarray.

Dickerson credits Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek for this theory of what distinguishes the legendary transformational presidents from the mere caretakers. “In order for a president to be transformational,” Dickerson summarizes about the academic’s work, “the old order has to fall as the orthodoxies that kept it in power exhaust themselves.” He concedes that Obama didn’t succeed in his first term with his “gambit… to build a new post-partisan consensus”; of course, by post-partisan consensus, he means the Democrats get their way on every issue and the Republicans shut up, set aside their principles, and surrender every point. “But,” he continues,

by exploiting the weaknesses of today’s Republican Party, Obama has an opportunity to hasten the demise of the old order by increasing the political cost of having the GOP coalition defined by Second Amendment absolutists, climate science deniers, supporters of “self-deportation” and the pure no-tax wing.

So Obama’s aim should be to redefine the right as ossified extremists, and then precipitate the fall of “the old order.”

So what, you say? Someone at some leftist website has exposed the radicalism we already knew defined them. Yes, but his openness is indicative of broader support. As Fox News’ Brit Hume pointed out, Dickerson is not just Slate’s “chief political correspondent” but is also CBS News’ political director. Big Hollywood’s John Nolte notes that a political director at CBS News “is now comfortable openly calling for the destruction of the Republican Party,” knowing he will not be excommunicated or even chastised for it by his mainstream collaborators – I mean, colleagues.

That’s because a second election victory for the post-American president has emboldened the radical forces that propelled him there, and the progressives smell blood. Total victory is within their grasp, they sense, so they no longer feel the need to hide their true goals.

Logged

"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Or the reaction of a governor of the opposing party praising the reaction by the president? Make sure to mention that this was done on Fox, despite an attempt to set the opposing party governor for a partisan statement.

by William Bigelow 7 Dec 2012 Remember when Chris Christie was hugging Barack Obama as they posed for photo-ops after Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey? He might have spent his time more profitably by making sure officials in the devastated areas were prepared to assist FEMA workers who were rushed to the scene and then told to go sightseeing for four days. A FEMA worker stated: They told us to hurry, hurry, hurry. We rushed to Fort Dix, only to find out that our liaison didn’t even know we were coming.

He added that when he and his fellow emergency workers arrived at Fort Dix, officials brushed them off:

The regional coordinator even said to us, “I don’t know why you were rushed here because we don’t need you.” They told us to go to the Walmart nearby or to check out the area but told us to stay out of the areas affected by the storm. If our boss back at headquarters had not been alerted and didn’t make a push to get us assignments, the people running the show on the ground level would have just kept us sitting in the barracks.

A Washington administrator admitted in an email:

My people are being told to go sightseeing. They may have a mission in 2-4 days .... I am asking them to reach out to contacts there that may be able to use their expertise ... We will continue to seek these opportunities as otherwise these personnel resources will be wasted ... Please advise way ahead ...

Michael Byrne, a federal coordinating officer for FEMA, protested:

I’m not going to say we couldn’t have done better. I can understand the emotional commitment. They want to jump right in and start with the effort. I feel the same way. The time was used to find the best place for them and for quick-training. There were logistical challenges but we have been fully engaged in the areas since then.

The FEMA worker disagreed:

When there’s disaster, every second counts. That clock starts ticking once the storm makes landfall.

Then he uttered words to make Chris Christie and Barack Obama blanch. He said:

Note: This is the first of two stories to examine the New York Times' coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The New York Times' January 14 report on the Middle East Media Research Institute's (MEMRI) videos of Egyptian Mohamed Morsi's 2010 anti-Semitic statements inexplicably omitted the larger story of the Muslim Brotherhood's decades-long intrinsic anti-Semitism.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has uncovered comments going back to 2004 showing a pattern of pure anti-Semitic comments made by Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

MEMRI has routinely covered these sorts of bigoted and hate-filled statements from throughout the Islamic world that most media outlets such as the Times have refused to cover since the late 1990s.

Morsi's comments reflect the Muslim Brotherhood's intrinsic anti-Semitism that is easily obtainable dating back to its founding in 1928.

The MEMRI videos cited by the New York Times earlier this month show Morsi referring to Jews as "the descendants of apes and pigs" and saying that Muslims should "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews…"

The IPT found additional comments by Morsi on the Muslim Brotherhood's website from November 2004 in which he described the Jews as "descendants of apes and pigs."Morsi also invoked the Quran during the same speech, calling the Zionists "traitors to every covenant and convention" and saying that "the Jews are the most hostile enemies of the Muslims."

References to Jews as "apes" and "pigs" also are repeatedly found in the speeches of the man many liberal Egyptians regard as the real power behind Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie. According to Germany's Der Spiegel, Morsi regularly meets with Badie and has shown that he expresses obedience to the supreme guide.

"The Zionists, the West and the lackey rulers conspired together. If the Muslim Brotherhood had remained in the field, the Zionist Entity would not have stood not its flag raised. Of old God forced the Jews to become pigs," Badie said in a July 7, 2010 sermon found on the Brotherhood's website.

Badie returned to the theme in a June 14, 2012 speech on the eve of Morsi's election.

"The Lord of Glory has threatened these murdering Zionists criminals with a penalty of a kind which operates in this world before the Hereafter," Badie said, then quoting: "So when they were insolent about that which they had been forbidden, We said to them, 'Be apes, despised.' [Quran 7:166]."

The Muslim Brotherhood's top leader cited a hadith frequently used by Islamic extremists that condones slaughtering Jews during a Nov. 20, 2012 speech captured by MEMRI."The cause of Palestine is of considerable importance. It is not a cause of power, nor of Palestinians, nor of the Arabs, but is the basic cause of life of every Muslim," Badie said. "For the sake of its return, every Muslim must wage jihad, sacrifice; and expend his money for the sake of restoring it.

"Palestine and Jerusalem is a holy Muslim land, part of the faith of the Muslim ummah," Badie continued. "To forsake any part of it is to forsake the ummah's civilization and faith. This is a great sin."

Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted Badie calling for a "Holy Jihad" to liberate Jerusalem from Israeli control in an Oct. 11, 2012 report.

"Jerusalem is Islamic ... and nobody is entitled to make concessions" on the holy city, said Badie in his weekly message to supporters, according to AFP.

"The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims," he said, stressing that taking back Jerusalem "will not be done through negotiations or at the United Nations."The "apes and pigs" motif about Jews resurfaced in November at a protest organized by the Brotherhood and its political arm, Al-Qalyubi. Preacher Muhammad Ragab called on Muslims at the protest "to raise the banner of jihad against the tyrannical, invading and wicked sons of apes and pigs [i.e., the Jews], and to unite against the enemies of Allah" during the protest.

The New York Times Ignores Muslim Brotherhood's Intrinsic Anti-Semitism

MEMRI posted the video of Morsi's anti-Semitism and its translation January 3, but it generated little attention until after Richard Behar of Forbes magazine wrote a scathing commentary on January 11 noting that Fox News had covered the story, and slamming the Times and other media for ignoring it.

"Surely, if the president of virtually any other country in the world had defamed an entire people in such a way — only a couple years before they got the top job, to boot — it would have at least gotten a few column-inches," Behar wrote. "Yet Morsi gets a free pass."

Three days later on January 14, the Times' Cairo bureau chief David Kirkpatrick wrote a front-page story about MEMRI's videos of Morsi's anti-Semitism, which was followed two days later by a Times editorial criticizing the statements.

But in both cases, the newspaper failed to show that Morsi's views were part of a continuum of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incitement that goes back to the Brotherhood's founding.

Ironically, information about the Brotherhood's historic anti-Semitism can easily be found in the Times' own archives, but apparently nobody looked. Instead, the Times editorial sought to find a non-existent context to explain away Morsi's hate speech and threw in outrageous moral relativism.

"The problem goes deeper than just Mr. Morsi, however. The remarks were made at a time when anti-Israel sentiment was running high in Egypt and the region after the three-week Gaza conflict in 2009 between Israel and Hamas," the Times editorial said. "The sad truth is that defaming Jews is an all too standard feature of Egyptian, and Arab, discourse; Israelis are not immune to responding in kind either."

The Times editorial rhetorically suggests Morsi's comments were an aberration, asking: "Does Mr. Morsi really believe what he said in 2010? Has becoming president made him think differently about the need to respect and work with all people?"

Well, no on both counts. Casting Morsi's statements somehow as a reaction to Israel's 2009 war in Gaza ignores the fact that Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders routinely made conspiracy theories blaming Jews for Egypt's problems for decades.

They call for jihad to liberate Palestine in times of peace and times of turmoil without any condemnation from prominent Muslim leaders. And no Israeli leader, or state-sanctioned media, has come close to responding in-kind.

Statements such as those recently made by far-right Knesset candidate Jeremy Gimpel calling for the destruction of the Dome of the Rock are strongly denounced in Israeli media and society alike.

The article and editorial fail to show the deeper context. This kind of speech is nothing new for the Muslim Brotherhood. Sayyid Qutb, one of the group's luminaries, even wrote a 1951 essay called "Our Battle with the Jews." The essay cited the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and blamed Jews for Muslim problems."From such creatures who kill, massacre and defame prophets one can only expect the spilling of human blood and dirty means which would further their machinations and evilness," he wrote.

Examples in the Times' own news archive and in other outlets show that Morsi and fellow Muslim Brotherhood leaders adhere to Qutb's anti-Semitism, which is, and always has been, a hallmark of the Brotherhood's ideology.

Badie, who served time in prison alongside Qutb in the 1960s, has vowed to continue his legacy.

"We will continue on the path of Qutb," the Assyrian International News Agency quoted Badie saying in a July 3, 2012 report.

Times reporter Michael Slackman captured another glimpse of the Brotherhood's anti-Semitism in a December 2005 article describing a statement by then-Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Mehdi Akef denying the holocaust.

"Western democracy has attacked everyone who does not share the vision of the sons of Zion as far as the myth of the Holocaust is concerned," Slackman quoted Akef as saying in a statement on the Brotherhood's website.

Before the Times' story was published, MEMRI issued a report showing that the Brotherhood website routinely featured anti-Semitic content. That includes a January 2010 article which dismissed the holocaust as "a tale invented by the American intelligence apparatuses with the Allies' collaboration during World War II, in order to harm the image of their German adversaries and justify the great destructive war against the Axis countries' military and civilian installations."

Had the Times examined its own archive it would have found a March 23, 2003 article by freelance writer Paul Berman in the New York Times Magazine article titled, "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror," chronicling Qutb's life and influence.

"The Jews occupy huge portions of Qutb's Koranic commentary – their perfidy, greed, hatefulness, diabolical impulses, never-ending conspiracies and plots against Muhammad and Islam," Berman wrote. "Qutb was relentless on these themes. He looked on Zionism as part of the eternal campaign by the Jews to destroy Islam."

Egyptian historian Khalid Fahmi fingered the Brotherhood as a chief cause of the exodus of Egypt's Jewish community, starting in the 1930s, in a Jan. 3, 2013 interview with Egypt's Al-Nahar TV translated by MEMRI.

"The Muslim Brotherhood bears much of the responsibility for the fleeing of the Jews from Egypt," Fahmi said.

Morsi attempted to spin his remarks following the appearance of the Times story, telling a congressional delegation led by Sen. John McCain that his words had been taken out of context. That's because, wink wink, "the media of the United States is controlled by certain forces," Morsi said referring to Jews. [Emphasis added] No anti-Semitism there.Last September, the IPT reported on a Jan. 10, 2009 article that Morsi wrote on the Brotherhood's website where he described Jews as the "descendant of apes and pigs.""May God accept you, and your deeds not leave you. God has chosen you to help His religion and defending his Aqsa, and indeed Arabism and Islam, against the herd of Zionists, descendants of apes and pigs" Morsi wrote.

According to a Jan. 22, 2013 report by MEMRI, Egyptian columnist Abd Latif Al-Menaway cited the same January 2009 article by Morsi and answers the question raised in the Times' editorial, concluding that the "article demonstrated that his use of the expression 'offspring of apes and pigs' was not a matter of coincidence." He also challenged Morsi "to ask Brotherhood members and all his supporters to stop using this language if he really believes it was wrong, as he said in the shy statement he issued to please the Americans."

Conclusion

Morsi's comments captured in the MEMRI videos and in the statement unearthed by the IPT should serve as a wake-up call for Western media outlets and politicians. They show the need for closer scrutiny toward the Egyptian president's saber-rattling toward Israel along with a more sober and less idealistic view of the Brotherhood's anti-Semitism and intolerance of other religions. That intolerance even extends to Muslims who do not subscribe to its brand of Islam.

The Brotherhood condemned Egypt's Sufi Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa last year when he visited Jerusalem.

"The Mufti did not simply represent himself, since he is seen as the representative of the official religious establishment," Osama Yassin, assistant secretary-general of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) said in an April 20, 2012 statement on its English-language website.

"Therefore, what he did cannot be accepted, justified or ignored. The Mufti must be held accountable in a manner that should deter any official or public figure from making the same mistake, and thus harming the Palestinian cause."

Gomaa's visit was similarly condemned by Yusuf Qaradawi, a chief Brotherhood ideologue based in Qatar. Qaradawi issued a fatwa denouncing the visit as haram or contrary to Islamic law.

"We must feel as though we are banned from Al-Quds and fight for it until it is ours," Qaradawi told the AFP news agency. "Those who visit legitimize an entity which plunders Palestinian lands, and are forced to cooperate with the enemy's embassy to receive a visa."

Egypt's Christians, who comprise about 10 percent of the population, have also felt the wrath of Morsi's tongue.

"They need to know that conquest is coming, and Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate," Morsi was quoted as having said by Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood expert Raymond Ibrahim writing in the Gatestone Institute.

Americans need to know the full truth and not the filtered version found on the pages of most newspapers and from politicians, knowing full well that the Egyptian president and the Brotherhood are motivated by a hate-filled sectarian agenda against all who oppose them.

On Friday it was revealed that the FBI is investigating Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) for allegedly sleeping with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.

Despite this, when Menendez was given a six-minute interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week Sunday, he was not asked one question about the investigation or the allegations (commentary follows with full transcript at end of post):

Raddatz began the interview asking Menendez about what Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had previously said on the program concerning immigration. She followed this up by asking Menendez what he wanted to hear from the President about this issue.

Next, Raddatz asked Menendez about the controversy surrounding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year - in particular, how he felt Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did during her testimony before Congress last week.

The next subject Raddatz chose was whether Menendez felt Chuck Hagel would be confirmed as Obama's Secretary of Defense.

With a total of six minutes of air time, Raddatz didn't ask one single question about the FBI's investigation of Menendez.

Can you imagine her ignoring such an issue if she were interviewing a Republican? That probably would have been the first order of business if not the entire six minutes.

As such, why the double standard?

For those interested, here's the full transcript:

MARTHA RADDATZ, SUBSTITUTE HOST: And we turn now to New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who presided over the hearings for Secretary of State nominee John Kerry and, should Kerry be confirmed, is set to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Welcome, Senator Menendez.

SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NEW JERSEY): Thank you, Martha. Good to be here.

RADDATZ: Thank you for joining us. What's your reaction to what John McCain just said? I mean, obviously you've been working together on this, so you know some of how he feels about this.

MENENDEZ: With what...

RADDATZ: In terms of immigration.

MENENDEZ: Immigration, well...

RADDATZ: I don't think you've been working together on some of that other stuff so much.

(LAUGHTER)

MENENDEZ: Well, I think John said it well. I am cautiously optimistic -- and as someone who has spent years between the House and the Senate trying to get comprehensive immigration reform, I'm cautiously optimistic. I see the right spirit. I see things that were once off the table for agreement and discussion being on the table with a serious pathway forward.

Of course, it will have the enhancement of the border security. We've done already a lot with more customs agents. We have more Border Patrol. We have more physical impediment than any time in history. But using greater technology, focusing our resources in a better way is something that we'll achieve, looking at making sure employers don't hire individuals who are undocumented, thinking about future flows and how we take care of the American economy by that, but also, very clearly, having a pathway to earned legalization is an essential element. And I think that we are largely moving in that direction as an agreement.

RADDATZ: What do you want? Senator McCain said it's helpful that President Obama is out on the road. What do you want to hear from him? How committed is he to getting this done? He also wants gun control.

MENENDEZ: Well, I was at the White House on Friday with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership. And the president made it very clear in that discussion that this was a top legislative priority for him in this session of the Congress and that he expects to work with all of us in an effort to achieve the goal, and he's fully committed to it, and I think that's why this week he starts the clock by the speech he's going to make out in Las Vegas.

RADDATZ: And that pathway to citizenship, does that have to be in there?

RADDATZ: Shouldn't the president have invited some Republicans to that meeting in the White House?

MENENDEZ: Well, it was the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, so...

RADDATZ: I know, but isn't there a way to find some Republicans he could invite into the White House? I know there's...

MENENDEZ: I think -- you know, in fairness to the president...

RADDATZ: ... there were just Democrats.

MENENDEZ: ... in his first term, he invited a very large cross-section of Democrats and Republicans. And I think he understands the unique role that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus plays in the question of immigration reform, and that's why he wanted to hear from that leadership.

But I'm sure that those bipartisan meetings will take place. And most importantly, I am really pleased by the nature of the bipartisan meetings that we are having with a group of six senators -- three Democrats, three Republicans -- and I understand a similar process is taking place in the House. That's real movement forward.

If you think about it, Martha, at one time, pathway to earned legalization was off the table. We were talking about sending people back as touchbacks, if they had any opportunity. That's not really being discussed. We're making very significant progress.

RADDATZ: Let me move also onto Benghazi. Do you think this is over? John McCain clearly does not think this issue is put to bed.

MENENDEZ: Well, look, I think that -- I don't know how much more can be said about the realities of what happened in Benghazi. We have the Administrative Review Board. They made it very clear. Secretary Clinton took responsibility.

RADDATZ: Then what were you trying to get through that hearing?

MENENDEZ: Well, first of all...

RADDATZ: Did she make mistakes?

MENENDEZ: ... my Republican colleagues insisted on having that hearing before we could move on to Senator Kerry's nomination. And I thought it was important to hear from the secretary to close the chapter, where, in fact, she is moving forward, as she said, on those 29 recommendations by the Administrative Review Board, how do we change the lines of authority within the State Department so that it's very clear who's responsible for embassy security, how do we change our...

RADDATZ: Which they've said they've implemented most of those...

MENENDEZ: Absolutely. And that's very important, so that, in fact, there are very clear lines of division.

RADDATZ: I want to move...

MENENDEZ: And also, how -- how do we make sure that, in fact, we look at intelligence in a different context? There doesn't have to be a specific threat, but we look at the environment in any place in the world in which our foreign services are operating.

RADDATZ: I wanted to move on to Chuck Hagel, as well, and his nomination. Would you support Chuck Hagel? Is he the right man to be defense secretary?

MENENDEZ: I have a meeting with Senator Hagel this week. I look forward to asking him a series of questions about Israel, about Iran as the major sponsor of the Iran sanctions in the Senate. I am concerned about some of the comments he has made about sanctions in the past. I think it's our best peaceful diplomacy tool to try to get the Iranians to ensure that we have no nuclear weapons, which we cannot accept from Iran, and I support the president's view that it's not about containment.

RADDATZ: And do you expect he will be confirmed?

MENENDEZ: We'll see. I think that there's been enough senators who have said they would support him, but we'll see. Of course, there's the hearings. That always, you know, gives us an insight. And I look forward to his personal answers to a series of my questions.

RADDATZ: I want to go in the end here just to something very quickly happening in your home state between Newark Mayor Cory Booker and 89-year-old Senator Frank Lautenberg, who basically suggested this week that Booker deserved a spanking because he was coveting his seat. Do you agree with that? Should Cory Booker be making moves now?

MENENDEZ: You know, that election is next year. And all of the back-and-forth now is something I'm really not focused on.

RADDATZ: Is Booker being disrespectful?

MENENDEZ: You know, that's a question for Senator Lautenberg and Mayor Booker, as far...

GM, Are you suggesting the Dem Senator from NJ would be treated differently by msm if he subscribed to a different political view? Mark Sandford in some similar situation (?) would get a scandal question in an MSM policy interview? Can't believe what I am hearing. -----------

After Four Years of Denying It, New York Times Banner Headline Admits Obama's 'Liberal Vision' (WSJ excerpted, subscriptions at http://www.wsjsubscription.org/)

"... the Times has spent the last four years insisting against evidence that Barack Obama, who pushed through government control of health care and a huge ineffective "stimulus" package, while maligning the wealthy and pushing higher taxes, is some kind of moderate. Back editions of the Times are littered with claims Obama was a centrist or moderate:

Reporter Jeff Zeleny on April 10, 2011 wrote a story under the online headline: "President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.' Zeleny also considered Obama a "pragmatist" in December 2009: "He delivered a mix of realism and idealism....he continued a pattern evident throughout his public career of favoring pragmatism over absolutes."

An April 19, 2009 story by David Herszenhorn and Jackie Calmes claimed: "In some of his earliest skirmishes, Mr. Obama eventually chose pragmatism over fisticuffs....Pragmatism, [his aides] add, is an Obama hallmark, and among the changes he promised - and has delivered - is a break from his predecessor's often uncompromising style."

Here's reporter Jodi Kantor on Obama the law professor, May 3, 2009: "Former students and colleagues describe Mr. Obama as a minimalist (skeptical of court-led efforts at social change) and a structuralist (interested in how the law metes out power in society). And more than anything else, he is a pragmatist who urged those around him to be more keenly attuned to the real-life impact of decisions."

GM, Are you suggesting the Dem Senator from NJ would be treated differently by msm if he subscribed to a different political view? Mark Sandford in some similar situation (?) would get a scandal question in an MSM policy interview? Can't believe what I am hearing.

I know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I've been told Martha Raddatz was a professional and now I don't know what to think.

GM, Are you suggesting the Dem Senator from NJ would be treated differently by msm if he subscribed to a different political view? Mark Sandford in some similar situation (?) would get a scandal question in an MSM policy interview? Can't believe what I am hearing.

I know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I've been told Martha Raddatz was a professional and now I don't know what to think.

She IS a professional, by current industry (MSM) (double) standards. And our job is to point out how ridiculously un-even-handed they really are no matter how few people care.

No doubt it was a condition of the interview that no embarrassing questions were to be asked. A condition that Martha insisted on and Sen. 'John' Menendez agreed.

Same goes for the hard hitting celeb interview last night for Steve Kroft and 60 minutes. The ongoing campaign should have to pay for that time slot.

Taranto writes now: "Mr. President, would it do any good if we said that secretary of defense thing was a joke? We didn't think so. Well, we've learned our lesson. Humor is just too dangerous and unpredictable a weapon. We will never use it again."

I happen to run into Newt Gingrich on the Greta Van Susteren show the other night. As he often does, Newt was making great sense on many things. Amongst them, was his opposition to the sale of F-16a and modern tanks to Egypt. Great whole-heartedly agreed.

With Sen. Paul's proposed amendment at the time opposing the sale to follow in the next day or so, it was a highly current topic.

And Lo! Behold! Who was GVS's next guest? SecState Hillary herself! , , , and nary a question about the jets and tanks.

Jimmy Lee Dykes has no business having firearms. A violent Vietnam vet with PTSD who beat a neighbor’s dog to death, threatened to shoot school children, and did shoot into an occupied vehicle, that Dykes wasn’t already incarcerated is a complete failure of the mental health and criminal justice system in this nation. All that happened before he murdered a school bus drive and took a 5-year-old hostage earlier this week in an on-going standoff.

In reading up on the hostage situation today, however, I caught an edit to the established facts (my bold below).

Here’s the current Associated Press report:

Dykes was known in the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and an assault rifle.

Here’s the earlier story:

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

Yes, the Associated Press has been caught red-handed changing “shotgun” to “assault rifle” in their reporting.

Since the beginning of the standoff (example) it has been reported only that Dykes has been armed with a shotgun when patrolling his property. The morphing of the shotgun into an assault rifle seems to have happened within the past four hours.

Update: Without noting that they’ve made a correction of any kind, the story has changed again:

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

Sadly, 2013 begins with CBS destroying its reputation for editorial integrity in an attempt to eliminate an innovative competitor.

(Photo: Julie Jacobson, AP)

Story HighlightsCBS ordered its subsidiary CNET to remove a product from consideration for a "Best of CES" award.CBS and other networks sued Dish to stop the sale of the Hopper.CBS' actions also hurt the value of their asset, CNET.

Recently, I found myself thrust in the middle of a kerfuffle when CBS ordered its subsidiary CNET to remove a productfrom consideration for a "Best of CES" award at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. I can never recall any major media company, much less a top-tier First Amendment protector like CBS, publicly mandating an editorial decision based on business interests. The bizarre aggressiveness of CBS executives against the Hopper Sling disturbed me as it not only tainted the CES awards, but it hurt one of the world's classiest media companies.

The controversy started when Dish introduced the Hopper, a product that allows Dish subscribers to skip through TV commercials under certain conditions. CBS and other networks sued Dish to stop the sale of the Hopper, despite a landmark 1984 Supreme Court decision that innovative products like the Hopper cannot be blocked by copyright owners if the product has many uses. Broadcasters never even challenged the legality of the TiVo personal video recorder back in 1999, which allows easy commercial fast-forwarding.

While the CBS legal challenge to the Hopper case chugs along, Dish used the 2013 International CES, to introduce the Hopper Sling, which allows Dish subscribers to stream one channel over the Internet while another is playing on the home TV. As owners of CES, we had an agreement with CNET to cover the show and recognize the best products. The CNET editorial team identified the Hopper Sling as one of the most innovative products of the show, but CBS brass ordered the CNET editors to remove it from CNET's website.

For a top media company to impose editorial control so publicly for business reasons created a firestorm, resulting in stories in USA TODAY, Wall Street Journaland several tech blogs. CBS' actions are puzzling, and troubling, on many levels.

First, it destroys two reputations in a single action. CBS, once called the Tiffany network, will never be viewed again as pristine. The ethical media rule is that corporate business interests should never interfere in journalism – or at least not so blatantly, publicly and harmfully. It made me wonder if 60 Minutes had ever suffered the same treatment.

CBS' actions also hurt the value of their asset, CNET, which they purchased for $1.8 billion a few years ago. One CNET reporter even resigned over the editorial meddling. Not only have CNET users and partners like us lost confidence in its independence, but the action is so devastating to editorial integrity that other staffers are almost certainly freshening their resumes.

Second, if this decision was based on legal advice, it was bad advice. It was later revealed by the top person at CNET that the 40 CNET journalists had unanimously decided that the Hopper Sling was the most innovative product at the 2013 International CES. Removing the product from the website does not change that. I can't imagine Dish lawyers won't figure out a way to get that in to evidence. All the removal proves legally is that the CBS brass really doesn't like the product and that they're bad at PR. They took a nice award that gets decent publicity and turned it into a hugely noticed award that got mega-publicity.

CNET is a credible technology industry journalism organization with respected reporters and analysts, and has always been a good partner to CES when examining these awards. CBS had a pristine reputation, and other than its questionable anti-innovation litigation strategy, had shown an ability to embrace innovation and try new things such as acquiring CNET and experimenting with a Groupon model. But those reputations have been severely damaged.

Moreover, CNET's top editor recently revealedCNET was ordered by CBS to deceive the public and say CNET pulled the product from consideration as a finalist, even though the Hopper Sling had already been the CNET editors' unanimous choice as best of show. Unbelievable that a top executive at a Fortune 500 company had ordered an intentional deception by their own journalists.

Every week it seems we see a rock of society crumble, and CBS' actions during CES unsettle me as someone who treasures innovation and hates seeing a great company tarnished by unfairness in a respected awards program. Sadly, 2013 begins with CBS destroying its reputation for editorial integrity in an attempt to eliminate a new market competitor. Now we are considering our legal options under our agreement with CNET.

Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies and the author of the New York Times best-selling book, Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses.

Question: How many times over the past four years have exploitative liberal journalists and Democratic leaders rushed to pin random acts of violence on the tea party, Republicans, Fox News and conservative talk radio?

Question: What will this rabid Blame Righty mob do now that an alleged triple-murderer has singled out prominent lefties in the media and Hollywood for fawning praise as part of his crazed manifesto advocating cop-killing?

Answer: Evade, deflect, ignore and whitewash.

This week, former Los Angeles Police Department Officer Christopher Dorner allegedly shot and killed three innocent people in cold blood. He was the subject of a massive manhunt as of Thursday afternoon. Dorner posted an 11,000-word manifesto on Facebook that outlined his chilling plans to target police officers.

CNN headlined its story on the rant: "Alleged cop-killer details threats to LAPD and why he was driven to violence." MSNBC reported: "Manifesto: Alleged Revenge Shooter Named Targets." KTLA-TV in Los Angeles went with: "Christopher Dorner's Manifesto (Disturbing Content and Language)."

"Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien (sic), Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera (sic), Tavis Smiley and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite's lead," Dorner cheered. "I hold many of you in the same regard as Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings."

Dorner also offered an "atta boy" to notorious, anti-Second Amendment CNN anchor Piers Morgan, suggesting he be given "an indefinite resident alien and Visa card." Offering up his political counsel, Dorner added: "I want you to know that I agree with you 100 percent on enacting stricter firearm laws, but you must understand that your critics will always have in the back of their mind that you are native to a country that we won our sovereignty from while using firearms as a last resort in defense and you come from a country that has no legal private ownership of firearms."

Dorner reminded MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that they had "met at McGuire's pub in P-cola in 2002 when I was stationed there. It was an honor conversing with you about politics, family and life." The alleged triple-murderer also advised "Today" show personality Willie Geist: "(Y)ou're a talented and charismatic journalist. Stop with all the talk show shenanigans and get back to your core of reporting. Your future is brighter than most."

It's ridiculous, of course, to blame these journos for the deaths of three innocents in Southern California. But herein lies a teachable moment. In the sick cycle of recent politicized tragedies, the Blame Righty mob demanded that conservative media personalities and GOP politicians apologize for crimes they didn't commit; called for increased regulation of political free speech; and cranked up its decades-old machinery to stifle conservative talk radio in the name of public safety and civility. Even the remotest connection to anything right-wing was excuse enough to convict conservatives for homicidal sprees.

And while the Blame Righty crowd still inveighs about Palin's completely innocent use of crosshairs on a political map, they have fallen silent about the stunning admission of Floyd Lee Corkins, who pleaded guilty this week to attempting to murder members of the conservative Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., last summer.

Corkins said he wanted to "kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-fil-A sandwiches (he had brought) in victims' faces, and kill the guard." How did he pick the office? From a "hate map" published by the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center -- the leading guilt-by-association witch-hunt crew targeting conservatives.

Ho-hum. Nothing to see here, move along. Be vewwy, vewwy quiet.

Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

BioFebruary 7, 2013 - 7:34 am Sooper Mexican is following the breaking story of the former Los Angeles police officer who has gone rogue, allegedly shooting three officers and hunting others and their families after he was fired from the police force.

The suspect, Chris Dorner, posted a manifesto on the web, but media are ignoring some of its key passages. Dorner’s rant begins with an attempt to justify his crimes, and then reveals a man steeped in typical Think Progress, Media Matters style leftist thinking.

He supports strict gun control:

Who in there right mind needs a fucking silencer!!! who needs a freaking SBR AR15? No one. No more Virginia Tech, Columbine HS, Wisconsin temple, Aurora theatre, Portland malls, Tucson rally, Newtown Sandy Hook. Whether by executive order or thru a bi-partisan congress an assault weapons ban needs to be re-instituted. Period!!!

Mia Farrow said it best. “Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.”

Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB. Never again should any public official state that their prayers and thoughts are with the family.

He is a strong Obama supporter, supports Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, and hates the NRA:

Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, you’re a vile and inhumane piece of shit. You never even showed 30 seconds of empathy for the children, teachers, and families of Sandy Hook.

He gets his media cues from MSNBC and CNN’s Piers Morgan:

…give Piers Morgan an indefinite resident alien and Visa card. Mr. Morgan, the problem that many American gun owners have with you and your continuous discussion of gun control is that you are not an American citizen and have an accent that is distinct and clarifies that you are a foreigner. I want you to know that I agree with you 100% on enacting stricter firearm laws

Dorner also lamented the fact that George Zimmerman was not murdered by Trayvon Martin. NBC injected race into that story, and may have helped drive a disgraced cop over the edge.

It’s pretty clear that Dorner is disturbed. It’s also pretty clear that the media and left have fueled his madness. His writing reads like a regurgitation of media narratives he could pick up on any mainstream leftist web site or media outlet. The same media are now censoring his manifesto. This comes just a day after news broke that another leftist gunman used leftwing propaganda to launch an armed attack on the conservative Family Research Council. Most media have ignored that angle, too.

A couple of days before that, a mass killer confessed to being taught to hate white people in college. That hasn’t become a media narrative, either.

If there’s no Tea Party angle and the media can’t make one up, they’re just not interested in reporting all of the facts.

Update: KTLA posted most, but not all, of Dorner’s manifesto. They left out all the parts in which he espouses leftist and anti-gun views.

The local media is covering up some of the motivations behind a deadly crime spree, while that spree is underway.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

Alleged Los Angeles shooter Christopher Jordan Dorner, influenced by left-leaning media coverage of gun crime in the wake of the Newtown shootings, has virtually paralyzed the City of Angels. Floyd Lee Corkins, a gunman incensed by anti-gay marriage bias after reading articles by the liberal advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center, took a firearm into the Family Research Council’s headquarters with the intention of killing “as many as possible.” He hoped to smash Chick-fil-A sandwiches in the faces of as many corpses as he could. These shooters were clearly moved by left-wing media, and we should thank every benevolent force in the universe that they were. Had either shooter possessed even a tenuous link to a conservative group, a media-driven hysteria about the malevolent influence of right-wing broadcasters and commentators would be gripping the nation today. Fortunately, when a crazed shooter’s ideology is explicitly and demonstrably left-wing, the media displays admirable restraint about linking a gunman’s politics to their acts of violence.

The instinct by many high profile voices in the media to link violence to right-wing politics is not a new phenomenon, but it has enjoyed a renaissance since the tea party began to achieve political power. The broadcasters who subtly implicated former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the 2011 attack on a Democratic congresswoman in Tucson, Arizona, is indicative of this bias. CNN host Piers Morgan exemplifies the lamentable instinct to blame conservatism for senseless violence well.

In a November, 2011, interview with Mark Kelly, Morgan said he was shocked by the “extraordinary” fact that Palin did not reach out to former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) immediately after the shooting. Kelly agreed, saying that the infamous map on Palin’s website which featured targets over a variety of congressional districts that Republicans were “targeting” in that year’s midterm elections – an infraction which sparked a national uproar about the marshal imagery employed by politicians since the time of Demosthenes – was “not the right thing to do.”

The implication was clear: Palin had some influence on the crazed gunman who shot up an impromptu meeting of a Congresswoman and her constituents. Palin’s crosshairs map had become a scapegoat for prominent voices from Paul Krugman to Randi Zuckerberg. It did not take much investigation into Loughner’s background to learn that he was not especially political, and was certainly not a fan of Palin’s. Nevertheless, nearly a year after this tragic incident, Morgan clung to that baseless charge.

Since the Newtown shooting, Morgan has been beating the drum about the need for stricter gun laws. His pro-gun control crusade made a deep impression on Dorner, who praised Morgan in his manifesto. So, having been specifically cited as someone who influenced Dorner, Morgan would engage in some introspection. Instead, he dismissed his influence on the L.A. shooter outright.

Morgan tweeted confidently — just hours after the manifesto in which Dorner praised not just Morgan but MSNBC’s programming and a proposed Assault Weapons Ban – that politics has “nothing to do” with Dorner’s rampage.

Unfortunately, the spectacularly wrong-headed approach the media took to assigning nonexistent motives to Loughner did not lead the media to impose some restraint on itself when opining on the politics of crazed shooters.

After Aurora, Colorado, shooter James Holmes attacked moviegoers this summer, ABC News reporter Brian Ross – minutes after the name of the suspect had been leaked to the press – sifted through the white pages to discover that there was one James Holmes in Colorado who happened to be a tea party activist. That incident forced ABC’s President Ben Sherwood to issue an apology.

In February, 2010, when the deranged Joseph Stack flew his Piper Cub into the headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service in Austin, Texas, few in the elite media waited for the dust to settle before blaming conservatism. “The First Tea Party Terrorist?” asked New York Times columnist Robert Wright.

Even though Wright had Stack’s online manifesto in hand – one in which he praises Marxist communism and laments the harsh excesses of American capitalism – Wright used a magicians sleight of hand to nevertheless link Stack to the tea party.

Was he a Tea Partier — or at least a Tea Party sympathizer? Conservatives who say no point to leftish themes in his manifesto. And it’s true that — in a line much-quoted by these conservatives — he seems to wish that the government would do something about health care. Then again, who doesn’t?…In the end, the core unifying theme of the Tea Partiers is populist rage, and this is the core theme in Stack’s ramblings, whether the rage is directed at corporate titans (“plunderers”), the government (“totalitarian”) or individual politicians (“liars”).

When the facts make it impossible to indulge the instinct to link a violent extremist to the right – in Dorner and Corkins’ cases for example – the media displays appropriate caution about assigning political motives to their actions.

That is an laudable impulse. The motives that drive disturbed individuals to commit heinous acts of violence, whatever they are, should not be glorified. Dorner’s manifesto clearly indicates that the media, and its coverage of the gun control debate that has followed the Newtown massacre, influenced him significantly. A responsible media would take that into account and maybe, just maybe, ask what they may be doing to contribute to the increased incidences of mass shootings.

That is a national conversation that Americans deserve. Rest assured, if Dorner or Corkins had been influenced to commit their crimes by right-wing media outlets, we would get it. Sadly, that level of self-awareness is nowhere to be found in today’s media landscape.

David Gregory host of Meet the Press has announced that due to the snowstorm he will not be confronting President Barack Obama this Sunday about his alleged non-involvement in the rescue not even attempted scandal brought to light this week in the Senate Benghazi hearings. Nor, with snow falling on the east coast as we speak, will he be questioning Jay Carney about his bald faced lie to the American people about President Obama's continuous involvement in the rescue that never got ordered. Said Gregory, "this is not just snow, it looks like heavy winds coming too. I just don't see tough questioning happening in the face of this."

Just breaking, Steve Kroft of the CBS program 30 minutes said, "me neither". "This is a big storm", said Kroft. "I don't see how we can get to it this week."

Both professional journalists said they are committed, weather and other delays permitting, to get to the bottom of this no matter what it takes before the November 6, 2012 election or as soon as is professionally possible after that.

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz attempted a bit of deception Monday in an effort to criticize GOP rising star Marco Rubio ahead of his State of the Union rebuttal Tuesday night. But on this occasion, the press wasn't falling for it.

In a conference call Monday, Wasserman Schultz enlisted the help of Annette Capella, described by party officials as a "Medicare recipient from Florida," to warn of the "extreme budget priorities," they believe Rubio is likely to outline in his televised response to President Obama's address.

Capella gave a lengthy and unflattering statement about Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida and Tea Party favorite. She admitted he is an attractive politician but one who would make life more difficult for seniors by supporting a plan to alter Medicare by reducing benefits.

It turns out, however, that Capella is hardly your standard Medicare-dependent Floridian. She's the Democratic Party's state committeewoman for St. Johns County.

The truth was uncovered when the call was opened up to questions. The first query came from a Palm Beach Post reporter, who asked Wasserman Schultz if Capella was the same person listed as the head of the St. Johns Democratic Party.

Wasserman Schultz paused for a moment but then said she would let Capella answer the question. Capella corrected the reporter, saying she'd stepped down from that role and is now represents the county as the party's state committeewoman for St. Johns, located in northeastern Florida.

For the last several weeks, as you are no doubt aware, the Washington Free Beacon and other news outlets—most of them conservative—have been investigating secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel’s positions, finances, associations, career history, and utterances. Which seems to us to be precisely what you would expect an intrepid and creative and entrepreneurial press to do when the president of the United States nominates a controversial former senator to one of the most important cabinet posts in the land.

Apparently, though, and without our knowing it, you and I have passed through an inter-dimensional portal and have entered a black-is-white, up-is-down twilight zone in which asking for information pertaining to a public figure constitutes participation not only in a McCarthyite “smear machine,” but also in a “campaign, orchestrated by controversial anti-Arab figures,” with the goal of “smearing and intimidating the Arab-American community.” And “this demonizing of the Arab community is very troubling,” a spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) tells Dylan Byers, a cub reporter for Politico. “The FBI was in here last week because of those types of threats.” The line separating inquiry and bigotry is, it would seem, rather thin. The ADC sees “the right-wing’s attacks in racial terms,” Byers writes. So the right wing better shut up. After all: Their witch-hunt has “come up empty.”

Except our reporting on Hagel hasn’t come up empty, not one bit, and the so-called mainstream media’s own coverage of public affairs proves it. Their blindness to this fact only confirms their incorrigibility. Remarkable, it really is, that the much-derided and condescended-to conservative media, even as the left cries and stamps its feet and blows raspberries at us, has led the way in reporting on the nomination of Brett McGurk to be ambassador to Iraq, the potential nomination of Susan Rice to be secretary of state, the ethics complaint filed against Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and, most recently, the nomination to secretary of defense of a man with a “buffoonish image” who “neutered himself” at his confirmation hearing.

Consider, again, the quotes from our friends at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Earlier this week, James Rosen of Fox News Channel reported that Chuck Hagel “did not disclose at least two recent speeches on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The Senate Armed Services Committee had asked Hagel for records of all speeches he’d delivered since 2008. But the materials Hagel presented the committee omitted talks he gave at Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in September 2008, and at the annual conference of the ADC in June 2008. “The content of Hagel’s speeches at these locations have not surfaced,” wrote Rosen.

A look at that content is one of the reasons reporters for the Free Beacon visited the offices of the ADC after Rosen’s report. But another reason, and what turns out to be the more interesting one, was to obtain a copy of the group’s IRS Form 990, which as a tax-exempt organization they are required to present to the public upon request. Here is a link to the relevant IRS instructions. Check out, specifically, the passage on page 74 in which the IRS writes that organizations filing under Section 501(c)3 of the tax code are required to “provide a copy without charge … other than a reasonable fee for reproduction and actual postage costs, of all or any part of any application or return required to be made available for public inspection to any individual who makes a request for a copy in person or in writing.”

Would the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee comply with IRS instructions and allow reporters for the Free Beacon to look upon the organization’s 990, so that the public might be better informed about the funding sources of an organization that has been injected into a national political debate?

The answer was no. And not only was the answer no, but these particular Free Beacon reporters were not allowed into the group’s offices. Nor were the Free Beacon reporters’ phone calls returned. Receipt of a hand-delivered request for the Form 990, provided to the security guard at the ADC’s headquarters, was not acknowledged. And when a Free Beacon reporter did get a representative of the ADC on the line, and attempted to explain the pertinent regulations and reasonable nature of this actually somewhat pedestrian request, that reporter was told he was being offensive and racist and harassing taxpaying Americans and the authorities had been informed of his existence.

That Chuck Hagel speech we mentioned? Sorry: It was in an “archive” somewhere in Maryland. Better luck next time. And that was where the matter stood, Wednesday evening, on the eve of the full Senate’s first vote on the Hagel nomination.

Then the matter took an unexpected turn. At 1:47 p.m. EST on Valentine’s Day, Dylan Byers and Mackenzie Weinger posted an item on Politico headlined, “ADC: Hagel’s 2008 speech, long sought by right-wing blogs, comes up empty.”

“Right-wing media outlets have been aggressively pushing the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League [sic] to locate and release video footage” of a Chuck Hagel speech, Politico readers were informed. And the “hope” of these right-wingers, readers were further informed, was to “reveal more fodder for their case that Hagel has a history of making anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic statements.” How Byers and Weinger knew the hopes and dreams of these conservative nut-balls wasn’t exactly clear, since they never once in their original post quoted directly the speech of an actual living, breathing conservative. But they did quote, directly and extensively, ADC spokesman Abed Ayoub, who said Free Beacon reporters may have come close to committing a hate crime. “They came to our offices—threatening us, demanding information, arguing with security. They got very abrasive, very aggressive. In fact, the FBI was in here last week because of those type of threats.”

As for the Hagel speech in question: “The tape comes up clean,” Byers wrote, over an hour before he actually seems to have watched it and posted it on Politico. The real story was that the Free Beacon appeared at the ADC “and harassed them for the tape.” The real story, ADC went on in a separate press release, was that “Senator Hagel has been attacked over and over merely for speaking to Arab Americans.” You can “send a strong message to those who want to isolate us” by writing ADC a $300 check. But don’t delay, because the intolerant mob could impose their reign of terror any day now. That’s spelled A-m-e-r-i-c-a-n. …

Not once did Byers and Weinger mention in their original post the Free Beacon’s completely legal and innocent request for the ADC’s Form 990. Not once did Byers and Weinger see fit to, I don’t know, pick up the damn phone and ask the WFB reporters for their reaction to charges of racism and hate. Byers and Weinger say that wasn’t necessary because they quoted from a WFB news story reporting on the allegations against our reporters. But the news story was precisely that—a news story—and thus did not contain the personal reflections of the reporters involved in writing it. Nor should it. Have political reporters become incapable of separating their sentiments and emotions from the information they seek to convey to the reading public? And have conservatives become so completely detested in polite society that their sentiments and emotions are not worthy of such conveyance?

And how does the search for a newsworthy speech “come up empty” when the search concludes in the release of the speech in question? Is any serious person willing to say that the video of Chuck Hagel’s address to the 2008 convention of the ADC would have been released had the Free Beacon and our friends not reported on it? And, not incidentally, where was the Form 990 at the center of this bizarre and needless controversy?

We contacted Dylan Byers, after he posted his scurrilous article, to make our case. Byers told us he’d write a follow-up once he called the ADC for reaction (exactly what he failed to do after originally taking Ayoub’s dictation). That second story, “Free Beacon: We did not harass ADC,” was only slightly less misleading than the first. There was the requisite ass covering, to be sure. But there were also quotes from Ayoub that were incorrect. Ayoub “noted that copies of the ADC’s 990 were available online,” Byers wrote. Now think about that for a second. If the forms were “available online,” why would WFB reporters go to the ADC offices to request them? Of course the forms were not available online. That’s the basis of the ENTIRE STORY.

“You can’t just walk into the office in the middle of the day, while everyone is working, and request a 990,” Ayoub told Byers. Ah, but you can! That’s the beauty of federal tax law. Why, the Free Beacon and Center for American Freedom provided Byers’s talented and expert colleague Ken Vogel our very own 990 not too long ago. Maybe Vogel is willing to provide his befuddled blogger a lesson in campaign finance?

What happened after Byers’s second post, though, was even more interesting. Shortly after we spoke to Byers, who spoke to Ayoub, a Free Beacon reporter received an email saying his formal request for the Form 990 had been received. And shortly after that, the ADC called the Free Beacon’s offices and said they would send Form 990s for the last three years to us by the end of the day. Which is to say: We may finally be able, after all, to report on an organization that awarded Chuck Hagel for his courageous and unconventional and blah, blah, blah, position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But we will be able to do so only after our staff was dragged through the mud on one of the most highly trafficked websites in the country.

Such is our burden, I suppose. And I suppose, too, that when Chuck Hagel withdraws his nomination, and Bob Menendez resigns his Senate seat, the usual suspects will bemoan the state of affairs that have allowed horrible conservatives to besmirch the reputations of such honorable and decent men. The usual suspects, of course, will have missed the real lesson: reporting works. The media might want to try it some time.

Warren Romney Buffett's Heinz takeover rehabilitates the private-equity LBO..Article Stock Quotes Comments (18) more in Opinion | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».smaller Larger facebooktwittergoogle pluslinked ininShare.0EmailPrintSave ↓ More ..smaller Larger First President Obama rehabilitates the reputation of the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter by nominating Jack Lew to be Treasury Secretary, and now Mr. Obama's most famous business cheerleader Warren Buffett is bidding to revive the good name of the private-equity leveraged buyout. Can someone verify that Mitt Romney lost the election?

Mr. Buffett has invested in many famous consumer brands over the years, but what is fascinating here is the role of 3G Capital, which has a reputation for cost-cutting and layoffs that would make Bain Capital blush.

In October 2010, for example, 3G Capital bought Burger King BKW +4.70%for about $4 billion including debt from a group that included Bain, Goldman Sachs GS -0.60%and TPG. The company proceeded to fire the CEO and cut the fast-food chain's employees by thousands in little more than a year. The Wall Street Journal reports that 413 people were sacked on a single day in December 2010.

Enlarge Image

CloseGetty Images .However, profits began to rise, the company is now adding new restaurants, and 3G Capital was able to take Burger King public again last June after only 20 months of private ownership.

To believers in free markets, this sounds like a classic private-equity turnaround in which better management improves the value of a business. But Burger King and 3G Capital have also been targets of liberal media critics who view private-equity firms as rapacious capitalists. Imagine how 3G Capital's cost-cutting at Burger King would look if compiled by an Obama Super Pac into a black-and-white TV ad featuring interviews with workers who lost their jobs.

Heinz has a reputation for being leaner and better run than Burger King was, so perhaps 3G Capital will need to be less ruthless. The buyers have promised to keep the Heinz headquarters in Pittsburgh.

But the takeover will also be financed with significant new borrowing, which the Wall Street Journal reports will double Heinz's debt load to more than $12 billion. Fitch Ratings downgraded Heinz's debt to BB+, or junk bond territory, citing the heavier debt load. Heinz will also have to pay Berkshire a 9% rate on its investment in preferred shares, or about $720 million a year. The new owners had better hope interest rates stay low and the economy keeps growing.

The usual media critics of private equity are ignoring 3G Capital's takeover history, perhaps because of the role of Mr. Buffett, the billionaire patron saint of taxing the rich. The proposed deal is even being portrayed as one sign of the return of business animal spirits and a healthier economy. So much the better if they're right, but Mr. Romney is still entitled to some head-shaking about deal-making and political double standards.

Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, admitted that the selection of CNN's Candy Crowley to moderate the second presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney in October 2012 had been a "mistake."

Crowley stirred controversy by intervening in the town hall-style debate to support Obama's contention that he had referred to the Sep. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi as a terrorist attack the day after it had occurred. In fact, as Crowley herself later admitted, Obama had not done so, referring only to "acts of terror" in general. In a CBS interview taped the same day, Obama declined to refer to the attack as a terrorist act, and subsequently supported a false story about a protest over an anti-Islamic video that never took place.

After Crowley backed up the president, some members of the audience burst into applause, in violation of the rules. The effect was not lost on the audience, which scored the debate as an Obama win--nor was it lost on Romney, who was sufficiently chastened that he refused to bring up the Benghazi issue again in the third presidential debate, even though that debate was specifically focused on foreign policy and national security.

Though it was likely not the only factor, or even the major factor, in Romney's defeat, Crowley's error slowed the new momentum that Romney had enjoyed since defeating Obama soundly in the first presidential debate. Her intervention also reinforced the media lack of interest in pursuing the Benghazi issue with the president.--------------

As Crafty pointed out, Gingrich would have known he was there to debate both of them. Romney was blindsided. Never saw it coming. He looked worse than Rubio needing water.

Not mentioned is the insinuation Pres. Obama made to Candy that the two of them had already discussed this:

Email Author @charliespiering Charlie on FB In an interview with Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts aired this morning, First Lady Michelle Obama recalled the tragic death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton who was shot and killed in Chicago after performing during the President’s Inauguration celebration in Washington D.C.

“She was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need,” the First Lady explained. “I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”

Chicago police reported, however, that Pendleton was shot by a man who “opened fire with a handgun before fleeing in a waiting car” according to the Associated Press.

It is extremely unlikely that the murder weapon was an automatic handgun, an extremely rare occurrence, even in the streets of Chicago. An overwhelming majority of handguns bought and sold in America are semi-automatic. Police officials have not recovered the firearm, but prosecutors stated that the accused attacker shot “at least six times” into the crowd.

For the broadcast, ABC’s Good Morning America producers edited out the First Lady’s “automatic weapon” line.

She was standing out in a park with her friends in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids grow – grew – up, where our house is. She had just taken a chemistry test. And she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need. I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.

In the web edition of the story, however, Michelle Obama appears to be quoted in full:

“She was standing out in a park with her friends in a neighborhood blocks away from where my kids…grew up, where our house is. She had just taken a chemistry test. And she was caught in the line of fire because some kids had some automatic weapons they didn’t need,” she said. “I just don’t want to keep disappointing our kids in this country. I want them to know that we put them first.”

Morning Jolt – February 28, 2013By Jim GeraghtyHere's your Thursday Morning Jolt.Enjoy!JimWill the White House Regret Telling Woodward & Others They'll Regret Public Disagreement?This will be a story worth watching: The White House vs. Bob Woodward. I'll let David Jackson of USA Today summarize:It's Bob Woodward versus the White House.The bestselling author and Washington Post reporter is protesting White House pushback over his criticism of how President Obama and aides are handling the sequester issue."It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this," Woodward told CNN, citing an e-mail he received from "a senior person" at the White House."I mean, it makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters, you're going to regret doing something that you believe in," Woodward said.In a statement, the White House said that "of course no threat was intended. As Mr. Woodward noted, the email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation. The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more. And Mr. Woodward responded to this aide's email in a friendly manner."All we can say is: We know more than a few reporters have received similar e-mails from White House officials. Yelling has also been known to happen."More than a few reporters have received similar e-mails from White House officials." So Obama staffers regularly tell reporters "they'll regret" writing stories detrimental to the president, and we're only hearing of this now?

"right" This comes from the ONE himself. Time to stop circling wagons by saying, oh it is just some staffer and of course if the ONE new he would put a stop to it immediately. Maybe it comes from Michelle who we once recall said she was ashamed of our country who now can't seem to get enough wealth glory basking with the celebrities and the circuit.

I wish she would cover her arms and chest more. Her face is attractive though

"right" This comes from the ONE himself. Time to stop circling wagons by saying, oh it is just some staffer and of course if the ONE new he would put a stop to it immediately. Maybe it comes from Michelle who we once recall said she was ashamed of our country who now can't seem to get enough wealth glory basking with the celebrities and the circuit.

I wish she would cover her arms and chest more. Her face is attractive though

Ace sums up the three reasons that the medialeft, and in particular the BuzzFeed, Talking Points Memo and Media Matters JournoList mafia, are now doing everything they can to tear down Bob Woodward.

There are several lies Woodward has exposed:

1. Obama, despite the media blitz to blame the GOP, actually conceived of and proposed the sequester.

2. Obama, despite now claiming that tax increases must be part of the deal to avoid the sequester, agreed last year that only spending cuts would constitute the plan to avoid the sequester. Thus, he’s “moved goalposts” yet again.

3. Obama does not in fact have to release illegal aliens or cancel ship deployments due to the sequester — he’s doing these things by choice, for political purposes.

In sum, President Obama’s administration is going out of its way to hurt the American people, so that he can achieve his goal of destroying the Republican Party en route to obtaining total power in the mid-terms next year. That’s his goal, the sequester was part of his plan, and Bob Woodward had to go and report the facts. Can’t have that.

Those who are trying to kill off Woodward are doing this in part to protect a president they support to the point of living by the unstated creed Obama uber alles, and they’re doing this in part as a warning to other reporters. You’ve seen what we do to Fox. You’ve seen what we’re doing to Woodward. You don’t want to be next.

It’s instructive to watch who is stepping forward to identify with Woodward, and who is doing everything they can to destroy him, to distract from what’s going on, or otherwise run interference on this story. The former are all liberals like Lanny Davis, and they appear to have a conscience and don’t like what they’re seeing out of the administration. The latter have shown themselves to be shills, and they are never to be trusted again.

Hey, Bob, you can’t say we didn’t warn you. We knew this White House was capable of attacking even the great Bob Woodward for telling the truth.

You could have listened to Michael Barone. He saw it coming even before Barack Obama was elected. In October 2008, he penned “The Coming Obama Thugocracy.”

I experienced it when DOJ press harpy Tracy Schmaler yelled at a half dozen reporters, as the White House official did to you, about my under-oath testimony involving the New Black Panther dismissal. Her victims included Pete Williams, Quin Hillyer, and Sharyl Attkisson. After Schmaler’s thug tendencies were well known, she was nurtured and promoted within the Thugocracy instead of being canned, as any administration before this one would have done to her — Republican or Democrat.

Schmaler has since been appointed a Made Man of sorts, entering the rarefied private sector air of David Axelrod’s shop.

Schmaler’s story is typical of this gang. Her shouting, threats, and rants at reporters would have rendered her unqualified to serve in the press shop of a state department of agriculture.

But there is something unique about the Obama White House. It borrows tactics and standards from the darker figures in history — threats, projection, unrepentant dishonesty, towering columns in stadiums, and even bloody mayhem like Fast and Furious hatched for political purposes.

Richard Nixon seems like a fluffy kitten compared to this crowd.

Which brings us back to you, Mr. Woodward. What’s happened when you, of all people, are the bad guy?

Had you ventured into any cocktail party in Silver Spring or Takoma Park just a few years ago, you would have been treated like a hero — liberal Washington’s very own version of Pittsburgh Pirate Bill Mazeroski, who with one swing of a bat brought down the reviled Nixon. “Maz” never had to pay for a meal in Pittsburgh after that October afternoon in 1960 when he delivered a World Series.

That used to be you, Bob. But now, you’re the problem!

You, of all people, threatened by a Democrat White House.

And where are your defenders? Where are the new hipster reporters of the left to defend you? Where have all the flowers gone, they used to ask.

But this is serious stuff. When the elder statesman of the industry that guards the First Amendment is threatened by the White House, it marks a dangerous turn.When other “reporters” join in, it is even more dangerous.

Perhaps this will be enough for the usual phalanx of fools at places like Mother Jones, TPM Muckraker, and The Nation to at last wonder if we’ve come full circle back to those days of righteous triumphs in August 1974. Outrage toward abuse of power was so in vogue. Where is the righteous indignation that seized a nation beginning in May 1973?

Maybe it was all a show, Bob.

Did the wave you started have more to do with the “R” after Nixon’s name than principle?

With you, I’d say it was principle. But with the rest of the liberal left, it’s starting to look like poor Dick Nixon got a raw deal compared to this mischief of rats.